Re: FreeBSD 6.0 and onwards

Toxa wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 04:38:21PM -0700, Scott Long wrote:
> 
>>So the current plan is to branch RELENG_6 (aka 6-STABLE) sometime around
>>May or June 2005.  That will begin a 1-3 month freeze and stabilization
>>process for the 6.0 release.  After that is released, we will do 6.1,
>>6.2 and onwards at likely 4 month intervals.  In May/June 2006 we'll
>>look at doing RELENG_7, or we might wait until Nov/Dec 2006 (12 months
> 
> Don't you think branching 6-STABLE (and, thus, getting 6.x RELEASEs)
> around June 2005 is too early for users which may be confused a bit with
> 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x releases. Now we know 4.x stands for "technologically
> outdated" but proven stability, and 5.x stands for new technology, new
> stable branch. In 2005, 4.x won't lost its actuality, 5.x will be in the
> mainstream (hopefully), and what new 6.x releases will be stands for?
> I think, there is no radically new technologies, any improvemens from
> 6-current could be MFC'ed to 5-stable, so why messing with 6.x releases
> so early?

Once a branch is declared -STABLE (happening with 5.3 right now) we are
no longer allowed to change or break the userland and kernel driver API
and ABI.  This puts certain hard limits on the ability to MFC changes.

On the other hand it allows the especially the ports team to have better
support the last -STABLE branch because known good applications do not
break with some later -STABLE releases of the same branch.  It is also
a benefit for users because you are assured that your applications don't
have to be recompiled when you upgrade to a newer -STABLE release within
the same branch.

-- 
Andre